Apart from a few minor items, the exterior insulation and siding is in place along about 1/2 of the area of our house. It is covers the east double brick wall and all 3 sides of the wooden addition. It has been a long process … longer than hoped for due to a lot of rainy days. This has caused us to have to get an on street parking permit because the driveway was being used for supplies and equipment. It is fortunate that there is a garage where some of the more valuable equipment could be stored.
It turned out that the strapping was 8 ins from wall and we could add an additional 2 ins of insulation. That allowed another R7 to be added to the existing R22 for a total of R29.
On the addition there was already 4 ins studding and insulation on the first floor. On the second floor the studding is 6 ins with plywood attached to that and then a further 8 ins of studs before the siding making a total of 14 ins of insulation (on the top floor.) That is R29 + R22 (R51) so it will be very warm. On the first floor it will be a total of 12 ins (R 44.)
As expected on an old house, complications arose. One was the fact that the vent pipes for the high efficiency gas furnace were in the way of the siding and had to be extended. Unfortunately the standard for this vent had changed so that the existing plastic could not be extended and has to be replaced entirely. The first quote for doing this work was around $1000 which I declined since they wanted to charge $18/foot of vent + labour. (Unfortunately another company who quoted $2.50/foot and agreed to do the work has been a no show.)
Another problem – the deck adjacent to the addition needed to be cut back to allow the siding to be attached correctly. It still is not restored. Then the fence between my property and the neighbour’s needed to be cut in order to add insulation to the back of the addition. That needs to be replaced.
Still to be done – repairs to the drywall on the interior to the addition – to determine the extent of the water damage I had removed some of it.
I’m happy with the new siding although the deeper window wells will take some getting used to.
